The work is motivated by an industrial environmental problem, that is, methanol removal from aqueous mixture. In order to complete this goal, organophilic pervaporation of methanol/water mixture through commercially available Sulzer PERVAP (TM) 4060 and 2211 membranes are investigated to obtain information about the removal of methanol. The experimental results are obtained at different feed concentrations (0.05-20 m/m% methanol) and temperatures (50-70 degrees C). Permeation fluxes, permeances, selectivities and separation factors are determined. The separation factors are modest but it proves to be greater in the case of PERVAP (TM) 4060 than 2211 membrane but it decreases with the methanol feed concentration. On the contrary, the total flux is higher in the case of PERVAP (TM) 2211 and it increases with feed methanol concentration and temperature. Our experimental data are evaluated with the pervaporation model (Valentinyi et al., 2013. Chem. Eng. Res Des. 91, 174-183) of our improvement and it is found that the model can be applied also for this organophilic case. Long-time experiment shows that the membranes of the current selectivity values are not capable for the entire removal of methanol from an aqueous mixture and the membrane development work should be continued in this area, too. However, if methanol removal is needed to solve the motivating this problem, then rectification can be recommended as a reliable solution in this case, too. (c) 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.